


Heart of Chalk

by demonoflight



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Jealousy, Post-Sburb, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-13
Updated: 2011-04-13
Packaged: 2017-10-18 01:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonoflight/pseuds/demonoflight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day after Sburb, Karkat finally has time to beat himself up for losing Terezi to an insufferable coolkid. Ironically, it's said coolkid who has the key to fixing the situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart of Chalk

When he was in the Veil, fearing for his life and not knowing what the future held for him, Karkat was convinced that he would feel so much better when it was all behind him.

Unexpectedly, getting off that god-forsaken meteor and reaching the new universe the trolls and humans now shared made him feel about a thousand times worse.

He should have been happy. The game was finally won, the demon – he still couldn't believe it was Jack, it wasn't even _their_ Jack – was gone, everyone wasn't dead anymore (he couldn't really say everyone was properly alive, what with Kanaya glowing all over the place), the kids were surprisingly not utterly infuriating in person... They finally got their prize. This time, the victory was even sweeter, after all the shit they'd been through. For once in his life, Karkat didn't completely fuck everything up.

Except for his relationship with Terezi.

Such was Karkat Vantas' precious little life. One day he is beating himself up for his failure at winning an apocalyptic game and dooming all his friends to certain death; the next, he mourns the short-lived red romance between him and the psychotic blind tree girl he had known since grubhood. And he actually felt worse about the latter. In his defense, Karkat spent so much time caring about other people for the last half a perigee that he barely had time to feel properly sorry for himself. Now that he didn't have to worry about everyone dying all over the place, it was time to be the selfish six-sweeps-old he wanted to be and mope.

In fact, he had been moping in the main hall of the kids and trolls' new shared facility all day, ever since Terezi dragged the insufferable coolkid for a chalk art session that morning. He had been moping so expertly that Jade took offense to it.

“Karkat, please, people are trying to have a pleasant discussion here!” she told him with a frown.

Indeed, Jade and John were sitting around a table in the main hall with Aradia, Tavros and Feferi, having an animated conversation over tea (apparently a universal constant) and a human foodstuff called 'oatmeal cookies'. The three tenderhearted trolls found the siblings' optimism and open kindness refreshing, and were overjoyed to meet them face to face (and in a state of living). Vriska was also with them, mostly because she was attached to John by the hip from the moment they met in person. She was rather uninterested in the conversation and her tea, and was focused on sneaking guilty gazes at Tavros when she thought he wasn't looking.

“What the fuck does that have to do with me?” Karkat grumbled at the bucktoothed girl.

“Well, you keep glaring at us!” Jade protested. “See, just like you're doing now!”

Well. He _was_ glaring.

She sighed. “Look, I know you're in a bad mood, but it's not our fault... We did try to invite you for tea, but I get the feeling you're still not up for it?”

“Fuck tea.”

Jade rolled her eyes. “Right. Anyway, I think you should go back to your room--”

“You mean respiteblock!”

“Oh, thanks Feferi! I keep forgetting that's what you guys call it,” Jade said with a smile. “So, yeah! I think you should go to your respiteblock and find something nice to do to calm yourself down.”

“Fuck this, Harley, you're not the boss of me,” Karkat spat. “I'm the fucking leader here, I'll do whatever the hell I want.”

“Well, John is the leader too, fuckass,” Jade retorted, crossing her arms. “And I bet he thinks the same.”

Karkat rolled his eyes and directed his glare at John, who was holding his cup of tea in a ridiculously dignified manner, pinky out and all. To his chagrin, John gave him an apologetic smile. “I think Jade's right, Karkat.”

Karkat glared at John. “What.”

“Well, you're in a really bad mood,” said John. “And I don't think glaring at us is helping you! And you won't talk to us so we can't really help you with that, either... But watching my favorite movies always makes me feel better! Like Little Monsters or Con Air...”

“Yeah, that's a great idea! Watching Kiki's Delivery Service always makes me feel better,” offered Jade.

John grinned. “See? Hey, Vriska, what movie cheers you up?”

Vriska rolled her eyes. “Joooooooohn, lay off, I'm not playing this stupid game.”

Aradia giggled. “That's because you don't want anyone to know that your favorite movie has always been Pupa Pan.”

The eightfold-eyed troll gritted her teeth. “Cut it out!!!!!!!!” she hissed. “Get with the times, Aradia, it hasn't been that since I was three sweeps old!”

“Uhhh, Vriska, that's not true," Tavros said, smiling. “Even when we were, uhhh, about five sweeps old, I guess... We always watched it together--”

“Tavros, shut up!!!!!!!!”

“And, Vriska always knew all the pirate captain's lines--”

“Tavros, I'm warning you--”

“And, uhhh, when we didn't Flarp, we always played Pupa Pan! And Vriska was the pirate, and, of course, I was Pupa Pan.”

The others laughed. Vriska groaned loudly, pulling her overshirt over her head in an attempt to hide her flushed face.

“Man, I'm finding out all sorts of new things about you, Vriska!” John giggled. Vriska just grumbled in response. “So, Karkat, what about you...?”

But Karkat was already gone.

~~

Karkat was actually in a bad enough mood that he took John and Jade's advice and went to mope in his respiteblock. Or rather, outside his respiteblock. They still weren't the boss of him and he'd do whatever the hell he wanted.

Right now, as he sat with his back against the door, arms crossed and legs akimbo, he was cursing himself for not dragging Terezi to have a long talk about feelings on a pile of shitty scalemates when he had the chance. All those shitty piles seemed to make everyone else feel better about their impending doom. Fuck him for being too uptight to use one.

He remembered how, about an hour after they retreated to the Veil, Terezi found him hiding in his makeshift respiteblock and crying his eyes out like a stupid wiggler. He was tired and sad and frustrated with his utter failure as a leader, despite her reassurance that he was amazing for getting the twelve of them to work together. Then, he was stupid enough to tell her that even though he was so flushed for her it wasn't even funny, he just couldn't pursue a relationship when he didn't even know if they'd be alive in an hour.

She accepted it. And by the next time they talked, she had found Dave Strider. The human was cooler and redder than Karkat would ever be. He just didn't stand a chance.

Dave's observation during their memo was spot-on; he was jealous, filled with rage over Dave's constant flirting with Terezi, and vice-versa. She was _his_ matesprit.

 _Was._

She had been his anchor in Sgrub, the one who kept him from constantly flipping his shit. That didn't change when they became matesprits in the middle of the game; as a matter of fact, he trusted her even more, and just having her around managed to calm his nerves down. She liked him, accepted him for who he was... It almost made him hate himself less.

But he fucked everything up and lost her. If he could, he would've kicked past him in the bone bulge for being such an idiot.

Stupid, stupid, _stupid_.

“Oh, there you are, Karkat!”

Karkat cringed and crossed his arms tighter against his chest. He glared at the two pairs of red shoes that appeared before him, making a point not to look up at the blind girl and insufferable coolkid that stood before him. “Pyrope,” he grumbled.

Terezi giggled. “Hostile today, are we?”

Karkat let out a grunt in response.

“You're just going to have to get over yourself, then,” she said, tapping the floor with her cane. “You have to come see the things Dave and I drew on the roof! It smells so much better now!”

“Fuck that shit,” Karkat muttered, letting his head fall to the side and rest on his shoulder.

“Aw, come on! You have to come, it's our finest work! Dave truly worked his genius up there.”

“Eh, wasn't a big deal,” said Dave, and Karkat was sure that, had he looked up, he would have seen the stupid prick shrugging in his stupid coolkid way. “Just did what I always do.”

Terezi chuckled. “No need to be so humble, Dave! You know full well you're the coolest there is.”

“Yeah, I pretty much am, huh.”

“Ah! I should've known you were fishing for compliments!”

“Should've known you'd catch on.”

“You are such a sneak.”

“The sneakiest.”

“That is fucking IT,” Karkat snarled. He quickly stood up and sent his hands forward, grabbing Dave by the collar of his raglan-sleeved shirt. Terezi's eyebrows were raised in surprise above her red shades, but Dave kept his cool, which pissed Karkat off even more. He tightened his hold on Dave's shirt. “You just can't stop being a little nookstain, can you?”

“Welp,” was all Dave had to say.

“You're doing this to fuck with me, aren't you?!” Karkat shook Dave a bit. Dave didn't react, even as his disgustingly cool sunglasses fell askew on his nose. “You fucking grubsucking asshole, bet you're not going to stop until you fucking take everything I--”

The smack of a cane at the back of his head cut his words short and made him lose his hold on Dave. He yowled in pain and grabbed his head.

“Calm the hell down, Karkat!” Terezi scolded, waving her white cane at him. “Jegus, what's gotten into you? Sorry about that, Dave.”

“No harm done,” Dave said as he righted his sunglasses on his face.

“You... You fucking...” Karkat mumbled dizzily. “Fuck...”

“I didn't hit you that hard, did I?” Terezi asked incredulously. “Stop being such a wiggler, Kar--”

Karkat cut her off with a wild scream that caught her and Dave off guard. He let out all his frustration, his anger, his jealousy, his anguish, all raw and painful. By the time he ran out of air, he was completely emotionally spent. He huffed, blinking back rogue tears, and took a step back, leaning heavily against the wall. “Fine,” he said with a ragged voice. “You win.”

Terezi's brows furrowed. “Karkat...”

“Shut up,” he snapped. He slunk down the wall again, sitting down hard. “You got what you wanted.”

“Karkat, what are you--”

“I said SHUT UP!” he cried. “I got it, okay? Stop rubbing it in my face! Fuck, just... Just go away.” He pulled his knees up and hugged them to his chest. “I hope you two will be happy together with your retarded bullshit art and your... Fucking coolkid lingo or whatever.”

There were a few moments of silence. Karkat buried his face in his knees. “I said go away.”

He heard a shuffle as Terezi leaned on her cane.

“Seems like Karkles is in a very bad mood today,” she said nonchalantly.

“No kidding,” Dave agreed.

“I think we should do something to make him feel better,” Terezi decided, a smile in her voice.

“I'd feel better if you both got the fuck away from me,” Karkat muttered.

Another tap of the cane. “No, I don't think that would work.”

“I think I know what will,” said Dave.

“Oh? You got an idea?”

“Yeah, just gimme your chalks and we're all set.”

Karkat groaned, smushing his nose against his knees. Just what he needed, one of those awful coolkid drawings. Dave might as well have stabbed him with Caledscratch; that would've been far more merciful.

Dave started working on the wall right beside Karkat. Every sound the chalk made as the human dragged and tapped it on the wall was agonizing. Karkat was sorely tempted to retrieve his sickle and slash at Dave's feet, but he figured Terezi wouldn't approve. Nor would John, Rose and Jade, but Terezi was the one standing beside him at the moment, cane at the ready.

“Don't worry, Karkles,” Terezi said, nudging him lightly with the end of her cane. “I'm sure you're going to love it.”

He highly doubted it.

Finally, Dave announced that he was done and stepped back from the wall, stuffing the pack of chalks in his pocket. Terezi walked closer to the wall, getting a better sniff.

“Dave, I think this is your best work yet!” she exclaimed. “Karkat, you have to see this!”

Karkat raised his head to look at Terezi and Dave disdainfully. “You can't be fucking serious.”

Terezi smiled at him. “Karkat, take a look.”

Karkat rolled his eyes. Might as well get it over with and then go and nurse his bruised ego elsewhere. He stood up slowly and turned around to look at Dave's ridiculous drawing.

 _They can't be fucking serious._

On the wall was a drawing of two figures, very crude but recognizable portrayals of Karkat and Terezi. The chalk drawings' expressions were rather accurate within the constraints of the medium, Chalk-Terezi wearing a sharp grin and Chalk-Karkat scowling just as sharply.

And they were holding hands.

Terezi cackled. “What did I tell you, Karkles? Genius.”

Dave hummed. “I dunno, Terezi, something's missing.”

“Oh? What could possibly be missing from this work of art?”

Dave rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Hold on.” He pulled a red chalk from the pack in his pocket and stepped back up to the wall. With two quick, rounding swipes, he drew a heart under the chalk figures. “There, perfect.”

Terezi sniffed, her grin widening. “Why, Dave... you were right! Now it's a true masterpiece.”

Karkat stared in silence.

“What do you think, Karkat?” Terezi asked, draping an arm over his shoulder.

Karkat felt his face getting warmer and scowled. “I think our relationship is _none of Strider's fucking business._ ” He glared at Dave.

“Sorry 'bout that, dude,” Dave said. “But hey, pretty much true to life, though.”

Karkat let out a snarl and tightened his fists. Terezi grabbed his shoulder tightly, perhaps preparing to restrain him if necessary, but the troll boy just yelled, “Well, if you think it's so true to life, then how about you sear this fact in your fucking thinkpan and STOP FLIRTING WITH MY GODDAMNED _MATESPRIT_?!”

There was a beat as Karkat realized what he said. His face grew hotter, and he was sure that if there was anyone who still didn't know about his mutant blood, they wouldn't be able to miss the fact now had they looked at his reddening face. Dave raised an eyebrow at him, making his shoulders tighten. And suddenly he was much more aware of the arm hanging over his shoulder.

“Matesprit, huh?” Terezi leaned forward, looking at Karkat with unseeing eyes. She was smiling at him, but it wasn't her usual cheeky smile. It was softer, gentler. She hadn't smiled at him like that since he put their relationship on hold.

“I, I thought... That...” God damn it, when did he turn into Tavros? He gulped. “I thought we were...”

“Of _course_ we are, stupid.” Terezi slapped the side of his head playfully. “Your little bout of post-game depression hasn't changed that.”

Karkat's heart skipped a beat. Judging by the heat that had spread to the tips of his ears, he was probably as bright red as Terezi's shades by now. “Then...?”

“It's the first time you've outright called me your matesprit,” she said, grinning. “About time, too.”

Karkat bit his lower lip lightly. He craned his neck to look over Terezi's head and see the coolkid's expression. To his surprise, Dave was grinning like it was fucking Twelfth Perigee's Eve.

“Guess you guys need some alone time,” he said, placing his hands in his pockets. “Been fun, Terezi.”

Terezi chuckled. She ruffled Karkat's hair affectionately and unhooked her arm, leaving Karkat and stepping up to Dave. “It really was! Sorry about Karkles here, you know how touchy he can be.”

“S'cool.”

“We'll do it again, right?

“You know it.”

Dave pulled a hand out of his pocket, closing it into a fist and presenting it for a fist bump. Terezi smiled and returned the gesture. With that done, Dave turned away, waving vaguely as he walked down the corridor.

As soon as Dave disappeared from view, Terezi approached Karkat again. She removed her shades and wiped them with the hem of her T-shirt, even though it didn't really matter.

“So,” she said, a sly smile spread across her lips. “We're all alone.”

Karkat scratched the back of his hand absently. “Yeah.”

The blind troll pocketed her shades, and before Karkat could react, she closed the gap between them. Her face was so close to his own, and for once, he didn't mind her invasion of his personal space.

“What now?” she whispered.

“I don't know,” he answered truthfully. “I just...”

“Mmmm?” she traced a finger alongside his cheek. He noticed a mild teal blush had crept to her cheeks.

“Just... Be here. With me.” Okay, that was the most retarded thing he could have said right now. But it was what he needed.

Terezi chuckled, wrapping her arms around Karkat's neck and pressing her forehead to his. “Can do, Karkles,” she said. “Though that sounds kind of boring. I have a better idea.”

Though he felt warm and fuzzyheaded (and rather stupid, not knowing what to do with his hands as Terezi hugged him), he was still focused enough to have a sense of dread. “Do I want to know?”

His matesprit raised an eyebrow, amused. “Hey, relax! I just thought we could go into your respiteblock and watch some of your silly romcoms together.”

“Well. Fuck.” Karkat gently wrapped his arms around Terezi's torso, figuring it was the right place for them to go. “That's actually the best fucking idea you've had all day.”

Terezi laughed and leaned forward for a kiss. And before he completely lost himself in her, Karkat wondered if she could feel him smiling.

~~

Dave came back from his art session with Terezi earlier than expected, just in time to help John and Jade carry the tea set back to the kitchen. John suspected it had something to do with Karkat, and asked Dave as much, but Dave just shrugged in his mysterious coolkid way and pled the fifth. They met Rose on the way, back from hanging out with Kanaya and doing whatever it is that flighty broads do together. It was then that John told his friends of his ultimate plan to cheer Karkat up by setting up a movie night with all of Karkat's favorite movies.

“And you know what? I won't mention Con Air even once!” John exclaimed, waving the floral teapot he was holding.

Jade gasped. “You're kidding!”

John shook his head. “Nope! I figure I'll leave Con Air for when Karkat feels better. He'd appreciate it more then.”

“This, I have to see to believe,” commented Rose.

“Aw, come on, Rose, have a little faith in me!” John protested.

“You know I have a lot of faith in you, John,” said Rose. “But if you don't end up comparing any of Karkat's movies to Con Air at least once, I just might have to eat my metaphorical hat.”

“Well, you're just going to have to knit yourself one to eat, then!” said John, puffing his chest.

They reached the kitchen just as Karkat and Terezi stepped out. Karkat was balancing a large bowl full of popcorn and two packets of oatmeal cookies under his arm, while Terezi carried a plastic bag filled with a variety of troll and human candy, most of it red, and two bottles of Faygo.

“Hello everyone!” Terezi chirped, grabbing Karkat's free hand with her own. “Don't mind us. Karkles and I were just getting some supplies for movie night.”

Karkat, whose cheeks were an interesting shade of red, merely pouted and pulled Terezi away. As they starting walking towards the living quarters, Terezi looked back at the kids and grinned. She moved closer to Karkat, resting her head on his shoulder and entwining her fingers with his own.

The kids stared after them for a bit, before looking at each other. John was surprised to see that they were all smiling. Even Dave was smiling – no, _grinning_ – as he clapped a hand on John's shoulder. “Sorry, bro,” he said. “Looks like Terezi beat you to movie night with Karkat.”

Terezi's cackling laughter rang through the halls. “You know what? That's okay,” John said, smiling brightly. “I'm kind of glad she did.”

  
**THE END**   



End file.
